RI's #4 School: South Kingstown High School

RI's #4 School: South Kingstown High School

In a one-place nudge upward in the 2011 rankings, South Kingstown improved on its 5th place finish last year, but noticeably edged ahead of nationally recognized Barrington High School.

The reason, given that this South County high school posts high, but not top-of-the-chart high, NECAPs and SATs, has to do with investment. With an enrollment of 1,058 (the second-highest) in the Top 5 schools, South

Kingstown boasts a remarkable student-teacher ratio of 9:1. This compares to Barrington High's 12:1 ratio (BHS also has a large enrollment, at 1,150). In partnership with that excellent ratio, South Kingstown spends $16,082 per student, a substantial increase from the 2010 ranking, at $14,633. The one-two punch of low student-teacher ratio and high per-student spending gave South Kingstown the nod over Barrington's admitted dominance in the world of standardized testing.

Riches beyond the numbers

With the University of Rhode Island just five miles away, South Kingstown enjoys a cultural ambience not typical of a Rhode Island public high school. The language department supports Japanese and Italian, as well as French and Spanish.

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With an eye toward life outside the hallways and classrooms, South Kingstown offers its students a broad mix of classes as part of its Applied Learning Department. With three subsets: Business, Technology, and Family and Consumer Science, students can explore areas as diverse as Personal Finance, Web Page Design, Sports Marketing, Robotics, Carpentry, Culinary Arts and Child Development.

And in a nice combination of curriculum and athletics, the Sports Marketing class films and edits highlight videos of the school's sports teams. To watch a few, go here.

South Kingstown High School at a Glance

Enrollment: 1,085

Mascot: The Rebels

Famous Alums:

• Jhumpa Lahiri, Author

For a downloadable, printable version of RI's Top High Schools 2011, with the full chart of rankings and summaries of key articles, click here.